


Out For a Buggering Duck

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Englishmen (and an Irishman) Abroad: Five Men in the Same Boat. To Say Nothing of the Dog.... [7]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Beatrix Potter - Freeform, Count Duckula - Freeform, Cricket, Danger Mouse - Freeform, Gen, M/M, Mike Gatting (mentioned), OT5 Friendship, Shane Warne (mentioned), The Duckworth Lewis Method (quoted), Twitter, flocks of duck jokes, the Ball of the Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because dearly as one loves fandom and fen, sometimes one despairs. Or, a scene in which Liam, and Harry to an extent, are brought to reflect upon their recent bad press, and Niall has opinions on cultural imperialism and overseas fans who thoughtlessly expect four Englishmen and an Irishman to dance (and sing) to American tunes.<br/>Quite possibly impenetrable to those not raised on cricket, Beatrix Potter, and ITV for sprogs: which is, in its way, rather the point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out For a Buggering Duck

* * *

‘Well!’ The wounds were even now a bit raw, but Louis, as Liam well knew, had been uncommonly kind in leaving it until now. ‘You always _were_ a bad layer, Jemima.’

Zayn glared. Which was rather a waste of energy, Louis being very much a sandy-whiskered gentleman.

‘More like,’ said Harry, at the rate of cold treacle being poured, ‘Count Duckula, is Our Liam, yah?’

‘Wait,’ said Niall, around a mouthful of bacon sarnie. ‘Who’s Danger Mouse, t’en?’ There really were moments in which they lived up to their stereotypes, quite tiresomely.

‘Y’ can all fuck right off,’ snapped Zayn.

‘It’s all right,’ said Liam, quietly. ‘I buggered things up.’

‘Darling, you were out for a tarnished golden duck,’ said Louis.

‘ _Will_ you leave off the sodding duck jokes?’ Zayn knew even as he asked, that, No, they’d not do.

‘No, but, honestly,’ drawled Harry. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘He clearly wasn’t,’ sniped Louis.

Niall decided to soothe things: there was a damned nasty glitter in Zayn’s liquid eye. Of course, Niall’s attempts at soothing did rather tend to be complicated by his inability to resist a jape, or, as now, to abstain from showing off his facility of tongues and accents – Black Country Yam-Yam included. ‘Now, duck, don’t yow mind yon ’alf-soaked bloke; never stops a-canting, that ’un.’

Zayn’s meter at this point was exceeding high. Liam’s hand squeezed his, stopping an explosion. For the moment, at least.

‘You know what I was thinking. I didn’t pay much mind to the kafuffle: who did?’

‘Yanks.’ Harry was crisp, although apologetic. ‘Fans.’

‘And how was Liam to know that?’ Zayn was unapologetically and positively brusque. ‘It was hardly covered in the papers.’

‘ _Liam_ can’t _read,_ ’ said Louis, fondly.

Zayn was too angry to stop and deal with this. ‘Not even much in the _Guardian,_ less in the _Indy,_ almost nowt in the _Torygraph_ and _The Times_ –’

‘You read the _Telegraph_?’

Zayn ignored Harry as well: commonly the wiser course if one didn’t wish to be sidetracked all ’round Robin Hood’s barn. ‘The –’

‘The _Mail_ was all over it, though,’ said Louis; ‘and that’s about Our Liam’s speed. No long words.’

‘I’d read bloody _Sugarscape_ before I’d read the _Fail,_ ’ protested Liam. He knew it to be pointless to protest Louis’ ascription to him of illiteracy. ‘Fewer out-and-out lies about slebs.’

‘You all know _fucking_ well what Liam was thinking,’ said Zayn. His tone was cold, quiet, and very dangerous indeed.

‘The fans don’t,’ said Louis.

‘Ah, _feck_ t’e fans,’ said Niall, finally exasperated. ‘I mean t’e ones t’at bang on about t’ings: t’e ones as ’d march in demos but t’at t’ey’d want t’ leave t’eir computers to do it; t’e ones as ’ll whinge about racism and sexism and privilege and all t’e fun o’ t’e fair when t’ey see it – even when it’s not t’ere t’ be seen – and never stop a moment t’ wonder if t’e rest o’ t’e world is not t’inking about life as seen by _Yanks._ Are t’ey, now, “Chief Harry”?’

‘The great war-leader, Shitting Bull,’ murmured Louis, sarkily.

‘Chrisht, and wasn’t t’ere one as said Liam was responsible for knowin’ what t’e mejjia storm was in America when he tweeted, even t’ough nine people in ten in t’e UK and Ireland hadn’t heard t’e details? And t’ese are t’e ones complainin’ of cultural _imperialism,_ and all sorts, but. Catch yerself on, t’ey don’t know what imperialism is! T’ey’d do better t’ ask an Irishman, or a Pakistani, t’ey would. Even you Englishmen, now t’e Yank boot’s on t’ other foot: what for do t’e four o’ y’ live in closets, not by choice, but t’at America’s t’e cultural empire and we mustn’t shock t’eir delicate sensibilities?

‘ _Feck_ t’ feckin’ fans. Shower o’ cunts, t’ey are.’

‘Niall…. We’d not be where we are if it weren’t for the fans –’

‘Oh, don’t y’ be bein’ Daddy now, my Liam –’

Louis intervened, in a _voce_ that was anything but _sotto,_ ‘Nialler! We agreed not to call Liam that after overhearing Zayn call him –’

Harry clamped a vast paw over Louis’ mouth.

Wisely, Liam ignored this by-play, although his blush betrayed him (Zayn, for his part, was glaring at the other three, and The Dread Pirate Tommo most of all, with a glare of positively operatic betrayal, and promised vengeance, which should have suited a twenty-stone soprano at La Scala).

Liam sighed. ‘Last time, you all told me not to apologise, because when I do, it simply … it makes things _worse._ I know we’ve kept shtum this time, but perhaps I –’

All four of them were quick off the mark with a chorus of negation.

‘Amn’t I tellin’ y’ time and again,’ Niall added, ‘t’e English apologise too much when it doesn’t matter, and never when it does? (Invadin’ Ireland, invadin’ India….) Jaysus, no, Liam: t’e last t’ing t’at’s wanted is anot’er _apology_. And I don’t know why we’d bot’er: t’ey’ll not accept it, t’ey never do, even when t’ey don’t deserve it at all – ringing up hotel rooms at all hours – _and_ I’ve tired o’ it, apologisin’ t’ people who call Zayner a Paki terrorist Mexican drug-lord, and Haz a slag and a whore, and T’e Tommo everyt’ing t’ey can put a tongue too – and yourself fat and a drunk and an eejit. _Feck_ ’em; feck ’em _all_.’

‘But if they _understood,_ ’ said Liam, persistently, plaintively, being his Frightfully Nice self. ‘All I really knew at the time was that the man was defending his _family_ against _management_ and the _suits,_ of _course_ I expressed solidarity –’

Harry began humming ‘The Red Flag’.

‘We knew that,’ grinned Louis. ‘We poked and prodded and browned you off and almost got ourselves killed by your guard-Zayn to make certain _you_ knew that.’

Liam simply stared at him – at all three of them – with his jaw slack. (Zayn’s stare was more a cataloguing of offences for future dire retribution.)

He shook his head. ‘Sometimes, I don’t know whether to hug you or hit you.’

‘Hit him,’ said Harry.

Louis raised a very Clary eyebrow. ‘ _Kinky;_ I like it.’

‘Or hit _me,_ ’ Harry added. ‘No one gets to hug Lou but me. And I don’t think Zayner’s too chuffed about your hugging anyone but him.’

Niall rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, aye, sure and t’at’s t’e way of it, and in two minutes we’ll be cuddled up all five t’get’er. As usual.’

‘So all this was … all this …’

‘Well,’ said Niall, ‘I meant a good half o’ what I said about t’at sort o’ fan.’

‘Um.’ Louis’ light tone was almost convincing. ‘You’re – just to be clear, darling – you’re not actually going to hit me. Right? Or Hazza?’

‘No, of _course_ not,’ said Liam, with Liamish earnestness.

‘He speaks only for himself,’ muttered Zayn.

‘So it was all – you don’t actually think I’m stupid? And that I can’t actually read?’

Louis opened his mouth to say something clever, and shut it when Zayn’s eyes narrowed upon him. He took refuge in broad Yorkshire instead: ‘Aye, happen.’

‘It was all to get you to say it,’ said Harry, kindlily. ‘Not that we needed to hear it from you; but you keep things bottled up too much, love, and _you_ wanted to hear it from you, yah?’

‘So it was just jiggery-pokery,’ said Liam. ‘Because I was stumped there at the first.’

Niall bit his tongue.

‘Simply forcing you to confront your own lack of guilt,’ said Louis, nodding.

‘Oh. Well. Thank you.’

‘If it keeps you,’ said Harry, gently now, ‘from getting bladdered and standing on windswept ledges atop terrifyingly high buildings, it’ll’ve been worth it, yah?’ (Liam blushed a bright cherry hue, and could not meet their eyes.) ‘’S not only that we can’t do without you, as a band; we love you, y’ know?’

‘And you’re not to apologise, least of all _now,_ when it’s begun to die away,’ added Louis, firmly. ‘DJ Malik, can you keep him off Twitter until the urge passes?’

‘I can think,’ said Harry, glacially slowly, ‘he can find other ways and urges to keep him otherwise occupied….’

‘And on t’at note, we’ll leave y’ t’ t’at,’ said Niall, gathering HarryAndLouis with a glance.

Zayn’s burning stare tracked them out of the suite until the door shut upon their departure.

‘All right, babe?’

‘You know,’ said Liam, sounding surprised to find it so, ‘I think I am.’

And he was: even when they heard from Niall’s adjoining room the donkey’s bray of laughter Nialler’d been holding in, and the strains of his beloved Irish band, the Duckworth Lewis Method, as he pressed play on their tribute to the Ball of the Century, ‘Jiggery Pokery’:

_It was jiggery-pokery, trickery, jokery,_  
 _How did he open me up?_  
 _Robbery, muggery, Aussie skulduggery,_  
 _Out for a buggering duck._  
 _What a delivery,_  
 _I might as well have been,_  
 _Holding a child’s balloon._  
 _Jiggery-pokery: who was this nobody,_  
 _Making me look a buffoon?_  
 _Like an accident prone baboon._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> If Niall had been Mike Gatting and the ball had in fact been a cheese roll, it should assuredly never have got past him. (We hates Shane Warne, yes, precious….)


End file.
